Again

Again
Norman Dubie

I’d left Paris for the beaches
 in Spain. I’d sold
 my dead father’s farm
 and, in shame,
 bought it back again
 at a great loss . . .  then
 a plough（犁） found
 a shelf of bismuth（铋）
 and I sold just the north pasture（牧草）
 for big serial¹ profits
 and I am ashamed again:
 the huge white bones of my father’s
 favorite cow exposed
 one late September morning!

It’s always been potatoes and bread
 or millions of francs（法郎） on speculation².
I am not stupid. I’m not dead.
 But the bones of an old cow assemble
 repeatedly now in a dream
 where my naked lame³（跛足的） father
 sits in a tub of boiling milk
 and screams at me
 first my name and then his name
 which is the same

name. The crimes of the verb to be
 pushing a hard rain in general
 across the city and its suburbs. . . .